Can someone briefly explain the term political dealignment?
POLITICAL DEALIGNMENT: DEFINITION: Political Dealignment is a term used by political scientists, in contrast to realignment, to describe a trend or process whereby a large portion of the electorate abandons its previous partisan affiliation, without developing a new one to replace it. 1) Many scholars argue that the trends in elections in the United States over the last several decades are best characterized as dealignment. 2) It is also believed the United Kingdom has become dealigned from class over the past three decades. IT HAS TWO SUB-PARTS: i) class deligbnment & ii) Partisan Dealignment i) Class Dealignment Class Dealignment is a term used to describe a situation where members of a social class stop aligning themselves in terms of class and believe that they no longer belong to a certain class. EXAMPLE: An example of this would be if the working class began to view themselves as lower middle class. Class Dealignment took place in Britain post 1950’s when people were more likely
